Blogs, Podcasts, and Wikis are some of the latest technologies to incorporate into teaching. This blog will specifically focus on history and related disciplines and the integration of this technology. I've been blogging since 2002 and started reading them about a year before. I started with Blogger and discovered Typepad at the 2004 SXSW meeting in Austin.
For the last six months, I have been contemplating incorporating podcasting into my teaching - specifically into my online classes. Summers seem to be filled with Teaching American History grant workshops, activities, and research and so I didn't make much actual progress beyond the investigational stages. But this blog will document one of my New Year's resolutions to get started on this. I've written one state grant for podcasting. The main obstacle at this point regarding the utilization of podcasts is to convince potential users that they do not need an iPod to listen to them.
I'm more skeptical of wikis because of their lack of verifiable credentials. For example, the wiki for Harry Truman cites the Eleanor Roosevelt site as its main source of info. As a multi-author work, I added some information from the Harry Truman Library website but it was quickly replaced with more ER-based information. (Note the wiki's Reference section) This points to some problems with potential ownership of wikis. On the other hand, I began contributing to a wiki that lists the web sites of all school districts in Kansas - information that is available on the Kansas State Department of Education website but is not easily "findable" or "user friendly" - it's merely a copy of the printed version in which websites are only secondarily important.
My latest discovery is Talking History's mention that it has podcasting now. Its shows have been consistently archived but just recently made the leap to the latest formulation of playback by specifically mentioning podcasting. I had the pleasure of meeting Bryan LeBeau in September and commented to him at dinner that he was "podcasting when podcasting wasn't cool".
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